Page:History of the University of Pennsylvania - Montgomery (1900).djvu/290

286

At the meeting of the Trustees held on 12 April, 1757, order was taken for the first commencement, a programme arranged, and the time named. On the 7th of the month the Gazette announced that: The Commencement for giving Degrees to the Senior Class of Students in the College of this City, formerly put off on Account of the Small Pox, is now fixed to be on Tuesday the I7th Day of May next: which will be the first Commencement that has ever been had in this Seminary. At the meeting of 10 May, the due formality was observed of the Senior Class, Paul Jackson, James Latta, Hugh Williamson, Francis Hopkirrson, John Morgan, Samuel Magaw and Jacob Duche, presenting their humble petition, that having gone through our Course of Studies in the Sciences, as professed in this College, and having performed our public Exercises and been publicly examined as Candidates for Degrees in your Presence, agreeable to Charter, do now humbly request, that you would be pleased by your written Mandate to present and recommend us to the Provost, Vice Provost and Professors for our Admission to such Degree or Degrees as as we are entitled to by our several Standings and Proficiencies in this Institution, [which] being considered and approved, the Trustees accordingly directed the Mandate to be issued. But as some honorary degrees were in contemplation, two Mandates were issued to the Faculty. The first directing the Faculty to admit Paul Jackson to the Degree of Master of Arts, and Jacob Duche, Francis Hopkinson, Samuel Magaw, Hugh Williamson, James Latta and John Morgan to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts. And the second to admit Ebenezer Kinnersley Professor of English and Oratory in the Academy and Theophilus Grew Professor of Mathematics to the Honorary Degree of Master of Arts; and Josiah Martin, now Student at the Temple, a youth of promising Genius who had finished the requisite Course of Studies in order to the Degree of Bachelor in the Senior Philosophy Class of this College, 1 and Solomon Southwickof Rhode Island, who without the 1 He died in the Island of Antigua in June, 1762, and Hopkinson wrote an Elegy on his former classmate. Essays and Occasional Writings, iii. 70.